This Scorching Earth. Donald Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ nothing. Just thought Davie or I might know him. We know scads of people in Special Services—I used to be USO, you know, and of course Davie is on the paper. Guess we don't."

      "Guess not," said Gloria, wishing that Americans had a custom like bowing. It made difficult things like parting between two people who didn't like each other so much easier.

      "Well, dear, I must run," said Dorothy, her eyes still intent on Gloria. "Perhaps I'll see you there tonight." She smiled briefly.

      "Hope so," said Gloria and turned quickly away. She rather wanted to know just who Dorothy's officer was. In all likelihood someone she herself had known, would know, or was knowing. There were only so many officers. Well, bless the grapevine. She probably would know before the day was over. Really, Tokyo was Muncie all over again—such a small world after all. Muncie all over again, but different.

      She drew a deep breath of the cool autumnal morning air and, for no reason, felt better. She breathed and smiled, realizing that, absurdly enough, she felt happy.

      It was being in Japan that did it, she guessed. Here she seemed to weigh less, her body had a suppleness and dexterity that surprised her. The sun shone directly into her face, and she felt tall, beautiful, and altogether different from what she knew herself to be.

      Often she had seen other Americans here smile for no apparent reason as they walked in the sunlight. Was it because they were conquerors? She doubted it. It was because they were free. Free from their families, their homes, their culture—free even from themselves. They had left one way of living behind them and did not find it necessary to learn another. Nothing they'd ever been taught could be used in understanding the Japanese, and most of them didn't want to anyway. It was too much fun being away from home, in a country famed for exoticism, in a city where every day was an adventure and you never knew what was going to happen tomorrow.

      Actually, thought Gloria, there was something paradoxically reassuring about being in this country where the ground might shake at any moment, where the distant, snow-covered mountain might, for all one knew, blow the whole island to pieces. You could almost feel yourself living. At any moment the ground might crack beneath your feet and you'd find yourself face to face with eternity. It was quite different from safe, dull Muncie where habit very soon cut you from life, and Gloria was inclined to prefer Japan.

      The gold-spotted leaves fell at her feet, and the cool air brushed her ankles. There was a clarity here—so different from the foggy, rainy island she had expected—a dryness, a precision in the atmosphere which made the most ordinary occurrence—a walk to the station for example—something joyous, as though a carnival were just around the corner.

      There was another kind of clarity too. She felt herself a part of something larger, something benevolent, like god, engaged in kind works and noble edifices. And she could see enormous distances. Her own country—the United States, Indiana, Muncie—like an arranged vista, fell perfectly into place. She understood it; she understood her place in it and even that of her parents. It was as adorable as an illuminated Easter egg.

      And here, all around her, was freedom, even license. The ruins were one huge playground where everything forbidden was now allowed and clandestine meetings were held under the noonday sun. The destruction, evident everywhere she looked, contributed to or perhaps caused this. She felt like a looter, outside society. Society no longer existed.

      Here she was free, here in this destructive country where autos collided as though by clockwork, where sudden death was always a possibility, and where dogs went mad in the sun, casting their long, barking shadows behind them. More than at any other place she had been in her life, Gloria felt alive in Japan.

      Two university students, black in their caps and high-collared uniforms, were walking toward her. They stopped talking to stare. When she passed them they both stood respectfully to one side of the sidewalk, their eyes never leaving her. As she walked beyond them she heard their conversation, suddenly animated, bright with words she would never understand. They were talking about her.

      She turned to look behind her. Both of the students were walking backwards, gazing after her. Gloria read only appreciation in their faces. They saw her looking, blushed, and turned around.

      Japan was like that. You could walk down the street and be admired. A visiting deity, deigning to step upon the common pavements. All the men would look at a white woman as though she were some rare, incalculably expensive and probably breakable object. At least, so Gloria believed.

      She turned around again, but the students were gone. If she had smiled at them she might have assured for herself a kind of immortality. The handsome youngsters would reckon time from the day the American lady smiled at them. They would excitedly recall to each other just what she looked like; they would vie with each other in flattering descriptions. At least, so Gloria believed.

      The next two men were middle-aged businessmen, and they didn't look at her at all. This did not disturb Gloria's illusion, however, for she considered them quite ugly. A man whom Gloria could not imagine as a bed companion simply didn't exist for her. But, in the next moment, a young carpenter on a bicycle turned to gaze so long that he almost ran into a taxi. Gloria turned around to look. Just to make sure he hadn't hurt himself. He was very handsome.

      She realized she was smiling. Just before she passed through the Allied free entrance to the trains, she turned to look at the plaza before her, at the great city spreading beyond it. She saw the sedan and the driver still waiting back at the hotel, small and distant in the morning sun. He seemed to be looking at her. She couldn't remember whether he was good looking or not. Oh, well, it didn't make any difference. He seemed to touch his hat, but she couldn't be sure. It was this typical gesture which reminded her that he was Japanese. Really, Gloria, she giggled to herself, your standards are getting lower—or higher, as the case may be.

      Still smiling, she nodded at the boy taking tickets at the wicket for Japanese and, feeling delightfully like Babylon herself, swept through the free Allied entrance to the trains.

      When Tadashi first saw the tall American coming toward him in the fur coat he thought she must be his passenger. But then she and the shorter lady with her walked on toward Tokyo Station. Tadashi shifted his weight to the other leg and went on waiting. Straightening his cap, he watched the MP on duty at the billet entrance. The uniform was nice—sharp creases, boots like mirrors, immaculate gloves.

      Tadashi remembered his own war-time uniform with something approaching nostalgia, then turned his own cap over one ear, slouched against the fender of the sedan, and deliberately scuffed his already broken and dusty boots on the tire. The military now sickened him as much as it had once attracted him.

      He remembered when he had been a lieutenant. It had been the same then. Affection and loathing. He had both loved and despised the Army. Now that Japan had vowed never to fight again this was one responsibility that was no longer his.

      But one less among so many didn't make much difference. There was his wife, his child, and the uncle who now lived with them. There was his job, so precious and so coveted by others that he had to fight daily for it. And there was his poverty—so extreme it seemed almost like a joke. He had never been poor before the war and now, after it, could scarcely remember being anything else.

      He smiled reflectively. This was far different from the war days, when his sole responsibilities were toward Emperor and country. Those times had been holidays. Even in the face of certain destruction—perhaps because of it—he had felt it was eternally New Year's, a joyous time filled with gifts and pleasures, extraordinary occurrences and freedom.

      Pulling СКАЧАТЬ